


it's a downright shoot 'em up

by Meskeet



Series: The Protector [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Action, Ana and Gabriel love their cowboy son, Angst, Blackwatch, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, EVERYONE IS HURT AND ANA IS ANGRY, Gen, Hurt Ana, Hurt Gabriel, Hurt Jesse, Hurt/Comfort, Jesse loses his arm, Platonic Relationships, Pre-Fall of Overwatch, Team as Family, Uprising, no one hurts Ana's boys and gets away with it, well mostly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-23 22:29:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10728567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meskeet/pseuds/Meskeet
Summary: Jesse McCree gets in over his head in an attempt to be a hero. Ana Amari and Gabriel Reyes can do little else but get swept up along with him in the rescue. Unfortunately, leaving King's Row is a lot more difficult than getting in.(aka the story of how Jesse McCree loses his arm and they fight an army to get him back)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Red_Tigress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Red_Tigress/gifts).



> This is essentially the story of Ana Amari and Gabriel Reyes going nuclear when Jesse has trouble extracting himself from King's Row. There's also some emotions, action, and family dynamics involved, so it's pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. I've finished writing this completely, I'm just cleaning up the second part before it gets posted by the end of the week. 
> 
> Special thanks to Red_Tigress for giving me this idea, and some lovely art to go along with it (in the end notes). Hopefully, you find it as painful as I do.

Ears ringing with the fluid staccato of Reyes’ shotguns, Captain Ana Amari squeezes her own trigger once again. One of the slicers ahead glows with faint light as the shot connects, its programming not faltering with the hit. When it doesn’t fall immediately, she fires rapidly once more, not bothering to use the scope. This time, the omnic lets out a pained whine and falls, legs simply collapsing as the circuits controlling its movements overload.

She would have sworn an hour ago that the look on Gabriel’s face couldn’t have gotten any darker, but as yet another slicer scurries in front of them headed in some unknown direction that is suspiciously similar to the coordinates indicated by their tracer, his expression’s edged from simply being _pissed off_ to downright lethal.

Ana snaps her rifle up and fires two quick shots, her own scowl darkening as the Nulltrooper whips around. It’s only a matter of time before Jack checks their comms. location and realizes they haven’t been safely issuing orders from control and had snuck into the city instead. If they were lucky, they’d slip in and out with no one the wiser, but given their personal mission parameters, the captain is none too hopeful that they will avoid their transport back being in the brig of the strike team’s plane.

“Update, McCree,” Reyes barks, seemingly oblivious to how the tone of his voice is enough to make any recruit quail. Ana’s not feeling too kindly herself, at the moment, considering they went from having only one illicit agent in the city to having _seven_.

“Now would be appreciated,” she says oh-so-mildly, after a long pause.

“Still gittin’ the last of the survivors out,” it’s only because she’s worked with him for years at this point that she can decipher the thicker-than-ever accent, stress and exhaustion mingling in a blur as the words rush out. “Not much luck so far, considering everything’s been blown halfway to hell.”

“If you don’t hurry up, I’ll send you the rest of the way there,” Gabriel snarls.

“Aw, boss, t’so nice to hear you care.”

Ana frowns, glances sideways at Reyes, who gives her a grim nod. He can hear it too, that thin wisp beneath Jesse’s words that’s creating more of a slur than the situation warrants.

“We’re fifteen minutes out,” Ana says, checking her watch and keeping an eye on the strike team’s progress. “Check in at the ten minute mark, maintain silence until then unless the strike team nears your location. Sending their frequency over now.”

“Over and out, Captain,” Jesse replies easily, and she can’t help huffing with annoyance once more. The irritation bleeds away to a more manageable level as she takes down a Nulltrooper. Reyes’ shotguns go off once more and there’s the sound of a heavy thud as another unit falls out of where it had been perched on a ledge above them.

“Care to explain one more time why McCree’s on holiday in the middle of a new crisis?” Ana asks archly, tapping her rifle against her leg in time with each step. The city’s gone eerily quiet as the waves of attackers have lessened, the type of stillness she’s seen only after invading troops have pulled back. She doesn’t have much hope that any civilians are left alive – with the exception of the mixed family McCree apparently stumbled across, anyone who didn’t make it out in the early hours wouldn’t be making it anywhere at all.

Reyes chewed on his lip, his words as hollow as his eyes. “He saved up a lot of vacation time during the crisis, Captain. Kicked him off base so he could go an’ experience the world.”

“He was stationed in London for a year,” she says flatly. “He spent all but one day complaining about the weather, the people, and the traffic in that exact order.”

“Girlfriend?” Gabriel tries.

Ana hopes he can feel the sharp spikes of her returning frustration as she lifts her rifle, tracking a scurrying Nulltrooper in her scope. As she takes out first the gun arm, then the head, she imagines Reyes in its place.  “ _Eid wahda matsa’afsh,_ Reyes. If I’m going to go drag McCree out of another problem you’ve dropped him in, I need more than that.”

Commander Reyes looks at her – he doesn’t do it often, not like this. For a moment, he isn’t a long time friend and even longer pain in the ass – he’s exactly the man he is to the rest of the world, the man who almost took control of Overwatch before it was decided Blackwatch suited him far better. He reaches up, yanks his comms. unit from his ear, and powers it off completely. It’s only the knowledge that Jesse will reach out to the strike team that lets her do the same, cutting the two of them off from the world completely.

Apparently he’s decided to let her in the loop. It doesn’t make up for the fact that the two of them are responsible for most of her greying hair, but it’s a start.

“Last week, we started hearing rumors about a threat to Mondatta. I sent McCree in to see if there was any truth to the claim.”

“And if there was anything behind it?”

“He was to extract Mondatta, who’s been gaining considerable traction with the locales around here. Until today, we thought Mondatta would be enough to keep any uprisings under control, but-”

“Null Sector,” Ana sighed.

“Got it in one.”

“I don’t think King’s Row would have taken kindly to you kidnapping an omnic, controversial or not, even if it was for his own safety.” _Or Jack, for that matter._

Gabriel spread his hands, raising an eyebrow. “I suppose we’ll never know. Besides, what Jack knows won’t hurt him.”

 _Asshole._ “Isn’t that exactly what you told Jack when you were trying to justify a public assassination? How did that work out for Blackwatch, hm?”

Disbanded and in its current state, neither of them said. Gabriel shrugged, seemingly unworried by the uncertain future ahead. “We are what we are, Captain Amari.”

What he was is lucky that she didn’t kick him into a mob of Eradicators and leave him. It would rid her of her headache, at least.

“And Jesse didn’t leave right when the uprising began, because…?”

“Going to have to ask him that. I’d guess it has something to do with the surprising number of refugees who escaped the first wave, but that’s not my business,” Gabriel reaches up, turns his comms. back on. “If he wants to be a bleeding heart and save kittens, well, that’s what vacation time is for.”

They continue in contemplative silence for the next few minutes, the thrum of their feet on dusty pavement and the rustle of the occasional omnic the only noise in their vicinity. In the distance, the regular rhythm of a familiar turret betrays the strike team’s presence in the city. They’d broken comms. with their primary forces an hour ago – once the team had gotten Torbjorn’s payload moving towards the gates, Ana and Gabriel had moved in on their own mission.

Ana checks the locator again and swears loudly. She ignores Gabriel’s look of interest. “Amari to McCree,” she snaps out. “McCree, state your location.”

Nothing.

“Captain Amari to Agent McCree. Location requested.”

No response again. Ana swears again, distantly aware she’s picked up her pace.

“Ana?” Gabriel looks at his locator, staying right on her heels.

McCree’s little dot had moved from his last reported position, going from a respectable distance behind enemy lines to close enough to where Torbjorn’s payload will go off to make her grimace. The strike team itself has shifted, hovering just minutes away from their final destination.

“McCree!” Gabriel snaps out, and then frowns. His shotguns give a distinctive click as he readies them. “Something’s jamming our communications, I don’t recognize the source.”

“They just keep getting smarter, don’t they? It won’t be too long before I can’t keep up with them,” Ana groused. “To be fair, they didn’t have to go long to outpace you.”

“When they told me you had a kid, I thought you’d be nicer,” Gabriel shoots back. “’Course, that was before I met your little hellhound.”

Ana gives him one of her sharp-toothed smiles. “She makes me proud.”

“She glitter bombed my weapons locker.”

“As I said, she makes me proud,” Ana replies serenely, then stops. Behind her, Gabriel slinks to the side, reloading his ammo with a relaxed motion.

A slight shift in the shadow is all the warning they get before a whirr of machinery announces the latest attacker. It’s the same omnic that Torbjorn had sent imagery of earlier – a giant shield thrums to life in front of it, purples flickering around the edges of its armor as it approaches with slow, steady steps. Gabriel and Ana share a look as she preps a modified sleep dart, the electrical disruptor giving it its own blue glow.

Unsurprisingly, it bounces off the shielding and hits the ground. The Eradicator fails to look impressed, its advance continuing with foreboding deliberation. Each step reverberates through the ground, the vibrations easily felt despite the thick soles of Ana’s boots.

“You flank, I cover,” Ana murmurs from the side of her mouth. Almost before the sentence is complete, Gabriel vanishes like a wraith, slinking back into the shadows and leaving her alone in the street. He’ll be fast, he always is, but she can’t help the uneasy feeling that being alone in the middle of a battlefield brings.

She shoots, aiming for the head. Her darts disintegrate upon impact with the shield, but as she fires off in quick succession, the omnic seems to take pause. Ana counts off the shots, one by one, until she hits ten and reloads in quick easy motions.

The purple light from its hands increases in intensity, beams striking towards her. Cursing her aching joints – she hasn’t run this many miles at a time in years, it seems, thanks to her desk job – Ana rolls to the side, jarring an elbow on the uneven stone paving. She shakes the prickle of pain away, taking aim.

Instantly, Ana stumbles back – the omnic had moved quickly when her back was turned, the thrum of its engines increasing as it fires almost point blank at her. It catches the edge of her jacket and even the bullet resistant material melts away at its touch.

“Any time, Reyes,” she mutters, and it’s then that Gabriel with his finely-honed sense of drama materializes behind the Eradicator, shotguns ringing out with lethal ferocity. The omnic stumbles under the four hits, turning to face the new threat.

Ana hits it with another dart, and this time, the electrical current contacts its body, sparks racing up and down the shell. A single touch will disrupt the field, but it’ll be enough to give them both some breathing room.

Gabriel nods at her, and the comforting wash of a biotic grenade sends energy surging through her. The omnic, by comparison, stumbles as it attempt to regain his feet. The commander, face twisted in a snarl, delivers a final shot to its head and the omnic pitches forward, falling still before its limbs begin to twitch once more. When it attempts to rise for a second time, guns thrumming to life with blistering intensity, Ana shoots once more.

This time, it doesn’t rise. Ana gives it a withering glance and hits the comms. again. Beside her, Gabriel does the same thing on a different channel. “Captain Amari to McCree, requesting status.”

“About damn time,” Jesse says, the relief in his voice taking bite out of his words. “I picked up some new omnic signs on my way out – friendlies. I’m helping move some rubble to get one of the monks out.”

“Get the hell out of there, McCree,” Gabriel snaps before Ana can say anything. “Just spoke to Torbjorn. Primary’s activated the payload and there’s a significant chance that at least one of your exit tunnels will be destroyed in the blast. He thinks structural integrity will hold, but you need to get out of there.”

There’s a flurry of swears from Jesse, the vast majority of which are directed at Torbjorn and a significant minority at Gabriel himself. “I thought Overwatch was supposed to be subtle. Blowing up King’s Row doesn’t exactly fall in that description.”

“You took the vacation in a war zone,” Ana replies, even as she gives Gabriel an uneasy glance. She’s already sped into a quick jog – they’re two and a half minutes from the entrance to the tunnels at the quicker pace, and another forty-five at least to McCree’s current location. “Next time you want to discuss bomb schematics, be in the country for the briefing. The team’s reported at least two Bastion units in the area that haven’t engaged with them – they’ve been using the tunnels to move around, so be on your guard and get out as soon as it’s safe to do so.”

She doesn’t quite conceal the worry in her voice, but knows it’s useless to tell him to leave civilians behind.  It’s even more pointless to expect him to listen, so despite herself, Ana picks up her pace. She’ll arrive at McCree’s location more than a little winded but it’s all she can do to stave off the growing feeling of foreboding.

Ana feels the explosion more than she sees it – the stones under her feet crack and tremble, the air tightens with the increase of pressure before abruptly letting go. Her ears pop painfully, everything blurring for just a moment before it everything goes abruptly still. The chatter of gunfire – Torb’s turret, Tracer’s automatics, even Mercy’s pistol – fill the air. Even Reinhardt’s roar is audible, a challenge to  whatever branch of Null Sector they’re facing tonight.

Ana checks the locator, changes direction. They have their own forces to deal with, even if their path is quiet for now. Reinhardt and Torbjorn make a formidable, if highly visible, pair and it seems as though all the omnic attention is pulling their way rather than towards the duo moving in.

“McCree?”

“Right as rain, Jefe. South tunnel is down, but rest looks clear. Thought I heard some movement, but everything’s been quiet since the rocks started settlin’ in,” the quick report lowers Ana’s hackles and she decreases her speed just a hair, enough that her breath doesn’t quite tear in her throat anymore. Gabriel mutters something assenting to Jesse, gives an estimate on how far out they are. “Almost have the monk out’n then I’ll meet you at the west entrance.”

“Keep a sharp look out,” Gabriel orders gruffly, but Ana’s aware that none of them missed the worry in his voice. Although she’s been briefed on why Jesse’s in the field, she’s still not entirely sure _why_ he has no back up to speak of, especially when they took into consideration that two of the three top-ranking Overwatch commanders deployed to bring him back in.

Taking out the Null Sector forces almost becomes routine; Ana uses two quick-succession shots at range, and if they survive to close the distance, Reyes takes care of what’s left. Ana doesn’t miss a single shot, well-aware that a split second could mean the slightest shift in the tunnels or a chance omnic running across Jesse’s location.

Ana veers a corner and almost crashes into a slicer. There’s a moment of surprise on both their parts, and then they’re each moving – Ana snaps out a dart, watching the unit collapse upon itself as she drops a grenade, the biotic field revitalizing her in a second. She pressed on, Gabriel at her heels. The next slicer she hears before she sees and she takes it down before Gabriel’s guns can even come fully up.

“In a hurry, Amari?” he mutters, as though he’s not nearly stepping on the back of her feet with each movement forward. “McCree, how much longer until the monk’s out?”

“Same as all the other times, boss.”

Keep going. Focus on the enemy. Ignore everything else. Her gun comes up empty. New magazine, in. She doesn’t hesitate after taking each omnic down, just steps over and moves forward. She’ll spare a moment of regret for their rebellion later – for now, each omnic is just another obstacle between her and her agent.

They’re at the entrance to the subway tunnel when they hear it – a deep roar of artillery, a slight creak of reluctant joints moving cautiously. A prickle races up Ana’s spine, the hairs rising on the back of her neck as she abruptly halts.

Gabriel, at least, is paying enough attention that he doesn’t crash into her.

“Bastion.” The word’s a low rumble punctuated by bared teeth. Ana lets out a low hiss.

“Captain Amari to away team,” she says, keeping her voice hushed. “Hold transport and expect four passengers.”

“Cap’n?” their newest recruit is the first to speak, confusion clear in her voice. “What’s going on?”

She cuts the signal. Gabriel takes the lead, stalking into the glow of the tunnels. Most of the lights were blown by the explosion and the two of them flit from shadow to shadow – although Bastion units do have sensors, they primarily rely on optics that should be muddles by the confusing lighting of the underground.

Ana clicks the comms. once, letting Jesse know they’ve gone silent. She can feel the Bastion’s presence, a menacing specter waiting to spring. Perhaps it’s dramatic of her, to expect the sentry to be waiting for them to creep into the open, but she’s walked into one too many omnic ambushes to feel anything but paranoia.

A boom echoes through the darkness, closely followed by the sound of a revolver firing rapidly. Another boom trails off, reverberating up and down the walls until the cacophony of sound starts to fade. The familiar revolver lets out a sharp retort, four more shots splitting the air.

Ana sprints, dashing by Gabriel even as she pulls a grenade from her belt. She moves as silently as possible, the rubble of the half-destroyed tunnel shifting each time she places her foot down. Jesse and the tank ahead exchange more shots and each flurry of fire seems to leave the tunnel in an even worse state of disrepair than before.

A dull light appears in the distance as they round the corner, a flicker of fire that does little to help their sight. Jesse’s gun has gone silent and there’s no sight of the Bastion unit as they dash closer.

Gabriel overtakes her, stealth forgotten in favor of haste. There’s a shift in the air as they approach, the arid smell of gunoil overcoming the smoke and Ana’s back twinges with the memory of bullet wounds as she acts on instinct.

 _“Down!_ ”

She hits Gabriel in the back, sends them both toppling into long-abandoned railing as the tunnel explodes around them. The Bastion unit bursts through the wall in tank form, rubble cascading around them as the tunnel warps and stone splits. Ana’s vision blurs as it hits the edge of the platform, but she finds her feet readily enough. Gabriel rolls upright beside her, shotguns already in hands.

The tank waits between them and McCree. Ana bares her teeth at it in a possessive grimace, raising her rifle. There’s holes in its armor and a dent in the top, perhaps from one of Torbjorn’s explosions. It looks weakened, but formidable.

It blasts a shell towards them and the two scatter, going opposite directions. It can only focus on one of them at a time, and it chooses to target Gabriel, who’s already lining up his first shot. Ana throws her grenade, watches the nanobots light up the air in a flurry of gold as they swarm over the armor. It shrugs off her disruptor as though it doesn’t exist, its casing clinking as it tries to line its cannon up with Gabriel, who’s attempting to be as much of a nuisance as possible. Ana keeps firing, one shot after another until she loses count, and only moves from her claimed high ground when the tank sets its sights on her. She ducks, shards of cement peppering her hair as the return fire misses by inches.

Gabriel climbs on top of the damn thing, chanting _die die die_ with each shot fired. He doesn’t waste time with reloading, just throws a shotgun to the side and yanks his spare out. Ana approaches herself, squeezing the trigger over and over again until her finger aches to the bone. The unit’s panicking, trying to get out of tank form as they swarm over it. If they let it enter sentry, they won’t stand a chance.

Ana fumbles at her belt, yanks out another grenade and shoves it into the unit, jagged metal tearing at her skin as she takes advantage of the weak point. She travels past it, grabbing Gabriel by the scruff of his neck and throwing him back onto the railing just before the tank explodes, shrapnel racing in all directions. The tunnel quakes precariously and something nearby explodes.

Everything goes white for a split second and stone screams around them as for a moment, Ana thinks she’s been blinded. But no – the top of the tunnel ten feet down simply gave way, showering them with dust and dirt but miraculously, not with stone.

 _Jesse_.

Ana finds her feet, coughing on the grime settling out of the air. Beside her, she can hear Gabriel trying to hail Overwatch on comms. – not just Jesse, it sounds, but the strike team and possibly HQ as well. With a sound of disgust, he kicks some rubble aside.

“Nothing,” he spits. “Might have been damaged in the explosion.”

“Captain Amari to Reinhardt,” she attempts. Not even static greets her. “McCree?”

Nothing.

“Might be the tunnels,” she says, squinting at the streaks of sunlight above. “Might not.”

Could be something else lurking, jamming their communications once again. It could just be damage by both of them being thrown, or something else accidental.

Ana scowls. She’s not inclined to believing in accidents, especially those that occur when she’s chasing after Gabriel, who plans for each and every contingency with frightening intensity.

Beside her, Gabriel starts to climb out of the depression and grunts, staggering slightly to catch himself on the edge as he slips back.

“Reyes?”

He grimaces at her, shifting to attempt to hide the way one of his arms is pressed tight to his side. “It’s nothing. Let’s find McCree and get the hell out of here.”

She hops up and offers him a hand up. Gabriel glares for a moment before he takes it, wincing as he steadies himself. Feeling Ana’s pointed stare, he shrugs. “Just caught my ribs when I landed. I’ve had worse.”

Ana sighs, reaching in her pack. He doesn’t acknowledge the injection, but his shaking arm steadies ever so slightly as the nanoparticles go to work. It’s a temporary patch at best, but at least it’ll keep him moving until they find Jesse.

Gabriel checks the locator and swears. “Lost the signal. He wasn’t too far ahead of us.”

He gestures, and Ana’s heart sinks. Gabriel’s right, of course, Jesse hadn’t been too far ahead of them. That wouldn’t be a problem, except the tunnel in front has been completely engulfed in rubble from the ceiling’s collapse.

“Shit,” Ana grumbles. This time, Gabriel lags behind her as she runs, a slight hitch in his gait hinting that he’s hurting more than he’ll readily admit. Ana blinks away the rest of her own fuzzy vision, shaking her head until the hazy tunnel focuses around her once more.

Get McCree, get out. Their simple mission just keeps becoming a bigger pain in the ass.

“McCree!” Gabriel bellows as they draw closer. “ _McCree!”_

Silence. Ana checks the comms. and the locator – systems are all offline. With any luck, it was nothing more than temporary or due to the Bastion – the last thing they need is another omnic bursting into the scene.

“Jesse?” she calls, as they approach the rubble. She curses quietly, circling the perimeter of the stack of debris before she begins to climb. It doesn’t go all the way to the lip of the hole, and she slides down the opposite end. “McCree!”

“Damned ingrate,” Gabriel mutters, then, louder, “Jesse McCree! I’m going to shoot you myself when I find you.”

“I think that’s my line. Jesse and the rest of Blackwatch – you included.” At some point, she’d bit her lip and it’s only now that she’s become aware of the copper taste filling her mouth. Ana spits to the side and pulls out a bottle, letting the fresh water overwhelm the taste of battle and chase it from her senses. “ _JESSE!_ ”

The steady rhythm created by the tramp of their boots over dust, the regular shifting of broken chunks cement, and the faint noises of rats wavers for a moment. Ana turns her head, trying to catch the noise in at least one ear.

“MCC-“ Gabriel, clearly hoping to get a signal from the top of the rubble, begins to bellow again and she loses it to pause.

“Shh,” she hushes Gabriel. “I’m listening.”

Left, maybe? Ana turns, trying to find the one dead spot in the cadence she’d grown used to during their frantic travel. She moves vaguely in the direction, patient and hopeful.

Gabriel makes a dissatisfied noise, and it’s then that she catches it. She’s flying forward before she realizes it, barely keeping her balance on the difficult terrain as she slips forward.

“Jesse!” she shouts.

The encroaching daylight casts long shadows throughout the tunnel that waver with each passing cloud. Broken walls hint at the formerly expansive subway system, leading into the seemingly endless underground network as she moves. Ana targets what looks to have once been a side tunnel, a once-smooth arch now crumbling around the edges with more than just the passage of time. Something glints there, a dim ray reflecting the glow of the tunnels.

At first, she’s inclined to dismiss the irregularity as just another pile of broken stone and debris. Like a marionette abandoned with strings cut, someone slumps against the wall, a pitiful figure amid the relative darkness.  He’s completely grey, coated in a blend of ash and dust that’s so close to the color of the walls that her eyes are inclined to skip over him completely.

Jesse’s hat is the only way she recognizes him, a quiet betrayal of his presence despite his absolute stillness. Crumpled and battered and with a hole through the brim, it lies beside him with the air of a gravestone. His visible hand – the right – rests on his leg, revolver dangling by his fingers, clutched as tight as any Bible would be. The dim brass of his belt buckle catches the light, the sharp pinprick that had caught her attention at the start.

“Gabe,” she says. She doesn’t yell, it feels as wrong as shouting in a tomb would be – her voice cracks ever so slightly, and if she thought she was running before, she’s positively _sprinting_ now. She flies the last fifty feet despite the way rocks give way under her weight, and almost before Gabriel can begin to follow, she’s dropped to the ground at Jesse’s side.

For a moment, Ana’s own pulse is all she hears, a frantic crescendo as she reaches up to touch Jesse’s throat. Despite the worry screaming through her bones, she waits, unwilling to accept the silence as her response. As she takes a deep breath of her own, she feels it, a quiet tapping against her fingers.

“Call Ziegler!” she yells this time, pulling Jesse’s comms. out of his year and tossing it. Gabriel stops in a cloud of dust, pebbles clattering across the ground under the force of his momentum, catching the device in one hand. “Tell her to be ready for a med evac.”

She trusts him to find a way, even if Jesse’s signal is as dead as theirs. Already, she’s assessing his condition, pulling out what she will need to stabilize him. She gives him a quick once over and her heart sinks.

His left arm is wedged within the wall, blood trickling down from where the stones have him caught. It explains his awkward position – one arm reaching up, the rest of his body slumped far below. Ana doesn’t move his head, worried about jostling spinal injuries, so she can’t find the exact source of the blood puddling behind him along the edges of the wall.

He groans, and her hands shoot out to keep his head still as his eyes crack open. Jesse shivers at her touch, squinting at her. “You came back,” he said, slurring each word. “Gunna… yell some more?”

“Maybe I should,” Ana murmurs. “What did you do to yourself this time?”

It’s not meant to be answered, but Jesse gives her as sour a look as he can manage with one eye half-swelled shut and his hair matted down with blood. He’s missing at least a few teeth, she notices as he opens his mouth to reply.

“Went _mano-a-mano_ with a Bastion. Wasn’t swell. Prob’ly still around.”

“Something’s swelling,” she mutters, shifting to his left side to examine his arm. “Did you get yourself run over while you were at it?”

“Rocks shifted when it fired,” comes the reply, Jesse’s eyes rolling to the direction of where his left arm is wedged into the wall. “Used to be an nice sized hole in the wall, but it went while I was helping the omnic out.”

“I doubt the engineers considered cannon fire when they built these walls,” Ana tells him absentmindedly, grimacing as she reaches for Jesse’s arm. “I’m going to sedate you – not fully, because I need you to tell me if the arm won’t move – but enough that you shouldn’t feel much as I do this.”

“You’re the boss,” he stumbles over the words, eyes already drifting shut as she injects him.

Although she’s already warned him, Ana still hesitates over his arm. They’re in an active combat zone – as much as she wishes, she can’t exactly get a team together to take the rubble away from him. Carefully, she clears away what she can, scraping dirt and rocks apart with her hands until her own fingers are scraped raw.

“Reyes?” she calls. “Need you to keep a lookout.”

Gabriel, looking about as frustrated as she’s feeling, looks back and nods, shifting until he blends into the shadows of the wall. Ana swallows thickly, hands tightening until nails bite into the palms as she kneels down next to McCree.

She ties the tourniquet first, vividly aware of how each beat of his heart brings a new pulse of blood to the surface. She checks the time the instant she ties the knot – two hours, give or take, before it’s too late to save the rest of his arm. Ana’s almost grateful that she can’t see to his hand – she’s done enough battlefield evacs to not be able to lie to herself about his changes.

Extracting the arm itself is slow work, the type that she’d call tedious if it didn’t involve McCree’s blood sliding under her fingers as she manipulates the abused flesh. She pulls slowly, carefully, trying to adjust the debris around him while keeping his weight off the limb, reluctant to cause any further damage with speed when deliberation can take her just as far.

Still, there’s only so far she can get before McCree starts to struggle against her, a plaintive whine rising from his throat.

“Please,” he slurs, drunk on pain and his mind who-knows-where as he tries to pull from her grasp. It jostles his arm further and he jerks like a live wire, almost collapsing back into her as he tries to escape the pain by reversing direction. “Don’t know anything.”

Ana doesn’t stop, well aware of the blade hanging over their metaphorical heads. Jack will notice sooner or later that Torbjorn’s team hasn’t moved from the launch site and tell them to leave, unaware that his fellow commanders are still trapped in the city. Ana doesn’t mind a gamble, but she’s not too fond of any of their odds without support.

“Shhh,” she hums, even as he cringes away. He’s switched to Spanish now, and although she’s picked up more than a few words from Reyes, most of them are an incomprehensible blur. Some words – _Deadlock, Blackwatch_ – are ones she can decipher, but the vast majority are lost amid his panic as she tightens the tourniquet around his arm now that she’s managed to expose just a little more.  

When she glances at Gabriel, questioning, his entire body’s gone still. He shakes his head in a sharp gesture, not quite meeting her eyes. Her own narrow, but he turns back to watch the shadows of the tunnel as though she never caught him listening at all. Before she can question him, Jesse snarls at her and raises Peacekeeper.

Ana isn’t quite certain that he’s aware of the gun in his hand – it seems just as likely that he’s trying to shove her away as that he’s trying to shoot her, a wounded animal just wanting the pain to stop. Either way, it’s not pretty to be at the other end of McCree’s sights – Ana swears as she knocks the gun away, cursing the vise he’s using to clench the weapon in his fist. It goes off, the echo of the shot ringing as the bullet ricochets off the floor.

Startled into awareness by the sudden noise, panting, dripping blood and sweat onto the floor, Jesse meets her eyes. He drops Peacekeeper on the floor like its poison, the sound not quite concealed by Gabriel’s own cursing. “Jesus, Ana-”

“An oversight on my part,” she says smoothly across, ignoring the stinging in her cheek from where his elbow made contact. “Certainly not the first time it’s happened.”

Gabriel lets out a low chuckle that doesn’t quite muffle the edge in his voice. He’s drifted closer, giving up sentry over the entrance in favor of the more immediate threat. “Gibraltar?”

Her returning scowl is fierce, at odds with her light tone. Jesse’s skin is cold to the touch, a certain kind of clamminess she’s learned to associate with the worst of scenarios. Ana shrugs off her cloak, arranging it to cover the bulk of McCree’s body, carefully tucking the edges around him. “Apparently, I haven’t learned anything in the past few years.”

Even as Jesse squints as her, eyes tracking her a half-second too slow to be truly following her motion, he relaxes enough at their teasing that he’s no longer bristling with combat readiness.  Ana carefully sinks against the wall beside him, tilting her head to rest against the stone. She closes her eyes, but all she can see is the ruins of Jesse’s arm, the way warm crimson smears into the cool grey of the stone.  His attention moves away from her, tracking something she can’t quite see, panting with 

 “I don’t see a way to get his arm free,” she tells Gabriel, picking Jesse’s hat off the ground and slowly beginning to dust it off. “The damage is extensive – he’s going to fight me every step and I can’t say that I blame him.”

He kneels beside them, reaching out to touch Jesse’s neck. He won’t be able to tell her anything she hasn’t discovered for herself by this point – Jesse’s pulse is gossamer thin, barely detectable through the layers of dirt and flesh and whatever blood is left in his body at this point. Gabriel brushes their cowboy’s sleeve back, frowning. They both know leaving an agent behind – _especially_ McCree – is completely out of the question.

The alternative, however…

“I’ll keep working,” she says, as though she’s not aching already, in more ways than one. It’s impossible to ignore how Gabriel’s eyes soften as he retrieves Peacekeeper from where it lies discarded in a manner Jesse would ordinarily never condone.

Turning away in an abrupt motion, Gabriel stalks to the mouth of the tunnel once more. Ana follows him with her eyes, watching anger crease ever line of his body as he holsters Peacekeeper in his belt.

The movement’s sharp, almost too fast for her eyes to follow in the dark. Gabriel loses his footing, flung into the open, to the middle of the tunnel in a manner that could never be called deliberate. His knees hit the ground, swiftly followed by an elbow that makes an unsettling _crack_.

“For fuck’s-” even as he curses, Gabriel scrambles away, boosting himself upright with his opposite hand.

Ana stands, bracing her feet on the ground in front of Jesse as she checks her rifle.

Fully loaded.

She’s out of grenades, out of disruptors – almost out of rounds as well, now that she’s taking stock. Gabriel’s listing to the side, once again clutching his arm tight to his chest.

The familiar thud of an OR-14 reverberates down the tunnel as it rounds the corner. It must have heard Gabriel’s approach, there’s no other way to explain how it managed to get the drop on him.

Surprisingly, it doesn’t place a shield as it takes fire. Gabriel spins away, bullets clipping the wall behind him just minutes prior. Ana doesn’t flinch, doesn’t bother to raise her eye to the sights – it’s a massive target, one she couldn’t miss even if she wanted to.

Missing is the furthest thing from her mind. Jesse, first and foremost, with Gabriel a quick second. There’s a limp in the commander’s gait now, the slightest hitch that threatens to send his feet out from underneath him.

Ana shoots. Four times, in fact, before the OR-14 turns its attention to her. She keeps shooting, even as it advances at her – lumbering, ungainly, one limb dragging behind it as it advances. Sparks race up and down its frame and as it misses with the first burst of fire, the light catches against the corners of a broken optical lens.

Ana shoots. Again. Again. Again. Reload, rounds shifting into place with satisfying finality. The OR-14 takes aim again, a fresh set of rounds ready to come straight for her –

 _Can’t move can’t move can’t move_. _Jesse’s right there –_

It sends out a fresh pulse and everything spins around her, feet sliding as she struggles to find purchase. She catches herself – the bomb had only been just to the side of her, enough to send her skidding but not enough to uproot her entirely. Ana can’t help the laugh of exhilaration that bubbles forth, the pure challenge as she raises her rifle again.

A scream.

Behind her, something hits the ground. A shadow flits between her and the OR – Gabriel, spitting nails – but she barely takes notice, already turning on her heel. Her rifle slings over her back, clicks into the place on the first try – if it hadn’t holstered so readily, she would’ve just dropped it on the floor, her own personal defense be damned as she returns to Jesse’s side. She’ll just have to trust Gabe, trust him to do the job of an entire team.

Sweat and blood mingle on Jesse’s face, carving streaks of pale flesh that flash through the dirt covering his skin. He looks dazed, like he’s been attached to a line and spun beyond the depth of reason. His eyes watch her with the shadow of dim confusion, an expression as if he’s not entirely certain she’s not just a manifestation of delirium.

“Ana?” he asks uncertainly, her name almost lost in a fresh groan.

The grav bomb didn’t pull him from the wall, not entirely. His arm’s been jarred even further into the light than before and its sudden freedom from captivity hasn’t done it any favors – blood oozing down the side of his shirt, mangled flesh a purple and red only broken by the pale glint of shattered bone piercing skin, shoulder twisted at an unnatural angle by the force of the omnic’s tech.

More stubbornness than sense, Ana’s said of him more than once and she’ll say it until her dying day. Jesse’s eyes dart back and forth, chasing shadows in the tunnel even as he remains seemingly unaware of the cacophony of Gabriel and the OR-14 behind her. Strung out – on pain, on fear, on the adrenaline that has his body in a tight grasp – Jesse starts to struggle.

“Get me out of here,” he says, a desperate animal in trap. “Or leave me. ‘m gunna be useless any-”

Even as he finishes his sentence, Ana moves closer. It’s just his hand still in the crevasse, wedged in there. At this point, she’s not even sure he’ll notice if she pulls it out – if he hasn’t reached his threshold for pain yet, he never will.

There’s a sharp noise then, the crack of a baseball bat without the echoing reverberations of a park around it. Ana turns her head just in time to see the OR swing its arm and send Gabriel thudding into the wall, one shotgun clattering to the ground. For an agonizing moment, Gabriel remains still, then he starts to pull himself to his feet once more, swaying. He bares his teeth, reaches for the shotgun, and almost drops it as he raises it once more.

“Jesse,” Ana begins, slowly, as though she has all the time in the world since it needs to be said. “If you ever call yourself useless again, I will shoot you like a dog myself. Angela will fix whatever is broken.”

 _Even if it’s you,_ she thinks.

“Can you make a fist?” Her words come faster now, one eye on Gabriel. Gabriel’s still on his feet, swaying as the OR continues its advance. Its gun arm hitches as it elevates, smoke pouring out of one of its joints.

Jesse gives her the most incredulous look she’s ever received and, well, yes. Maybe it’s not the brightest question.

“I will free you,” she promises, despite Gabriel calling her name. Jesse shakes his head – not in disbelief, but in a clear attempt to focus. He looks at her like a lifeline, like he’s a drowning man clinging to the only stable thing in sight and she wonders what it is he truly can see. “But-“

“Do it,” he snaps. “Tired of all this waiting-”

There’s a thud, and for a moment, silence behind her. She chances a glance – Gabriel’s hit the wall again and this time, he doesn’t look inclined to move. The OR-14 is limping, but still mobile – it seems to have forgotten about them as it marches towards the commander, one hind leg dragging behind it as it goes.

If she’s going to move, it’ll be now. Ana can’t think of how _young_ Jesse looks – like Fareeha with the flu, eyes wide and trusting even as fever encroaches on the edges of the mind. Jesse hisses as she reaches for his wrist, gripping it as tightly as she can. There won’t be any second tries, not with this. He hisses and then she pulls, almost losing her grip from the congealed blood. His yell is sharp enough to split glass, a high keen that cuts as abruptly as his hand breaks free of the wall.

He sags against her, thrown into neutral and all chance of forward momentum halted. He’s still breathing – barely, but the movement’s there – but he’s blessedly, mercifully, unconscious. Ana hoists him up, aching muscles protesting the burden but not quite giving out yet. The tourniquet will have to do for now, as the OR is almost on top of Gabriel and they need to _move._

“I have him - retreat!” Ana barks, steel threading through her voice as though he’s the latest recruit dropping a gun during drills. Maybe Reyes has been waiting for her signal, maybe not; either way, whatever has kept him on the ground doesn’t seem to be holding him back anymore, for he pushes himself upright and stumbles away from the OR-14 with the same speed and coordination as a drunkard.

She can’t risk pulling the omnic towards Jesse, not when he’s an anchor on her shoulders and it’s all she can do to keep her balance on the uneven ground. Gabriel meets her gaze and nods once, raising his shotgun and hitting the unit in the center of its mass, causing it to continue shambling after him. As it pulls into the center of the main tunnel, she slips out on its heels, whispering a prayer for Jesse to remain silent.

Unresponsive, his head bounces against her back as they move. In front of them, the tunnel opens up once again, the pile of rubble and stone a seemingly unsurmountable mountain. The evening light paints the tunnel red, the glow of the sun muffled by the horizon in the distance, and closer, the towering city buildings. It’s windy, cold air whipping around them and the dust hanging around them like scattered stars, light glinting off the hazy edges. Even with the fading effects of the nanoparticles from earlier and her cowl pulled tight over her mouth, Ana can’t help the cough that rises in her throat, the grime smothering her just as efficiently as any woolen blanket.

It’s a small noise, but she freezes nonetheless. She doesn’t dare to turn around, aware that any flash of sharp movement might bring the OR-14 down on both of their heads. Her rifle won’t be enough at close quarters, not against an omnic of its size. It was wounded when it arrived and Gabriel’s only compounded on its problems… but that doesn’t mean it’s not more than capable of taking down two poorly armed agents, if Jesse even counts at this point.

 “Keep moving,” Gabriel calls, voice echoing through the tunnel. She turns, then, but can’t pinpoint his voice – he’s at the edges of the light, past the halo created by the chasm in the ceiling. The OR’s frozen, head slowly pivoting to face Ana and Jesse.

She doesn’t just move, she _moves_ then, subtlety lost in favor of scrambling up the side, Jesse’s deadweight threatening to topple her back to the bottom. Ana can’t help but to think of Fareeha, again, and of Jesse – both of them looking up at her with all the faith in the world. As her leg slips and her knee scrapes against rock, it’s a painful reminder that she is all too feebly human, thin and exposed and not at all capable of the miracles they believe her to hold.

Ana half runs, half slides down the opposite site. The OR’s more than aware of their presence by now, and she pays barely any mind to the way the rocks clatter across the floor. Later, trying to remember the run to the edge of the tunnel will be like staring into the sun; bright and blurry, with dancing sparks when she tries to focus on individual moments. It’ll be the hot stench of Jesse’s blood she recalls, the way crimson smears against the blue of her shoulder, how her mouth fills with copper when she splits her lip open once again.

She’ll remember Gabriel catching up, how his arm stays cradled to his chest even as they exchange burdens. Jesse’s hat stays clenched in her hand – but she takes Peacekeeper from Reyes, the gun smooth and flawless despite the long day behind them. In return, he takes Jesse who’s started to claw his way into awareness, approaching the ability to find his own feet.

“Go,” Ana says, calmly, once they’re in the mouth of the tunnel and the OR’s started to pick up pace behind. There’s the shrill roar of omnics around them echoing in the city, but nothing edges close.

Peacekeeper is heavier in her hand than it has the right to be, as weighty as Jesse on her back. Gabriel gives her a long look, skeptical, and nods. He’s harried the OR-14 for long enough and taken a fair few hits himself, well past the point that she’s starting to question his aim. One shotgun dangling from his hand, he supports Jesse as though the cowboy weighs as much as a feather.

Or, perhaps, Reyes simply doesn’t know how to drop him.

“I’ll be right behind you.” Each word drops carefully from her mouth, a steady promise that doesn’t waver even a hair.

Commander Reyes might never have the blind faith of Jesse and Fareeha, but he’s worked with her long enough to know she doesn’t lie. He smiles as she tucks Peacekeeper away, her rifle a comforting weight in her hands. “We’ll be leaving hot,” he replies. “Better hurry.”

“ _Go,_ ” there’s a smile in her voice but not on her lips. The world’s in a fog around her as she takes sight down her scope, one knee on the ground to brace for the kick.

Their slow footsteps recede into the distance, a hitch every second step.

Ana waits.

The OR-14 emerges, a dull glow emitting from its armor. It’s smoking, a wounded predator seeking to end the small irritation. The strike team may have damaged it in the initial explosion, but Ana spares it no pity. There are some days when she can’t help but agree with Torbjorn, some days when she looks at the bodies piling on the ground and has to concede that yes, many omnics cannot help but threaten lives with their very existence.

Then again, she reflects as her finger tightens on the trigger, a low breath rattling out of her lungs, many humans are much the same.

The first shot hints the joint of a leg, sends it into a fresh stumble. Ana doesn’t flinch as it returns fire, pulling herself to the side as stone flies like shrapnel through the air. She fires again, again, again, each shot striking true.

The OR-14 still hasn’t flinched when she runs out of ammunition. Ana drops her biotic rifle and pulls Peacekeeper, rounds slotting into place with a steady _chink chink chink_. She hasn’t fired this gun in years, not since Jesse arrived to Overwatch full of grit and anger and ready to fight anyone who looked at him the wrong way.

She had told him that he might be a good shot with a pistol, but clearly he didn’t know how to handle a true weapon. Just as he’d swelled with teenage indignation, she’d ushered him to the range and slapped the revolver in his hand.

“ _Watch the kick,”_ she’d said, when the first shot had taken him by surprise and he hit the wall instead of the target. He’d never missed a single shot, not after that.

_“You did that on purpose.”_

Ana traces the tattoo under her eye, as she’s down to three bullets. She can hear the rustle of desert sand, the glint of the sun off the endless sea, the steady thrum of the noon signal as the world crawls to a halt.

The OR raises its gun, its last remaining sight fixed on her.

Fareeha’s laugh, a distant echo. The catch of hair in her mouth and the bellow of battle. The cool wash that freezes her hands, sends a chill rattling down her spine. If there is a hurricane, she is an eye: a steady rock in the center of a tempest around her. 

McCree has his high noon, but she had her Deadeye first.

 _Steady on, cowboy,_ she’d said. _You just get one shot and you make it count, you make it hit between the heartbearts and the silence. It’s not about the shot you take._

 _But bullets are what kills them_ , he’d protested, hands steady under hers as he sighted down the revolver.

_You kill them, with the eyes and talon of a shrike, the fangs of a desert snake hitting them where they’re weak._

Ana doesn’t feel pain, not like this. Not as the world narrows down to her enemy. There – left front joint will take it down, force it to expose the head where the second sight and the AI’s housing will be weak. Three shots total, but one is all she really needs.

In a way, she’s been using Deadeye since she starting hauling Jesse away, when there was nothing for her but one step and the next and the blur of tunnel walls around her. It’s been building to a crescendo that even a nanoboost can’t conquer and now that both are eyes wide open, the tension bleeds away like the gradual clotting of blood and even the sight of the OR-14 firing at point blank range can’t cause her to step aside.

She recalls Jesse, young and whole and young and broken. Jesse their recruit and Jesse their agent are tangled up and overlapping like double vision, the OR-14 nothing more than another target on the range and Jesse’s hands on Peacekeeper’s underneath hers.

_Jesse, looking up at her like she’d never going to stumble, just an echo of imagination that’ll guide him through Overwatch with a sharp tongue and a sharper smile. It might be better for him if she was nothing more than the manifestation of battle, a cattle prod designed to send him dashing away from the eye of the storm until he finds somewhere safe to take shelter._

_“Ready, McCree?” she asks. Fareeha isn’t suited for this, this slow toll of a bell that brings the killing shot. Fareeha doesn’t have the patience, the sharp-precision necessary to wait for the stillness of a heated fight. But Jesse – well, she sees a little of herself in him, as much as she allows herself to see._

_“Draw,” he whispers and-_

-she says, squeezing the trigger, her grasp as gentle as a mother’s over a child’s hand.

The OR-14 falls just as Jesse had, a strangely human gesture as its limbs fold under it and it pitches forward at her feet, toppling as the light in its lens flickers and cuts off. The omnic falls to the ground, metal clattering against stone and legs twitching with the universal throes of death.

The OR-14 falls in sound.

Captain Ana Amari falls in silence.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If part 1 was the retrieval, this gets to be the evacuation. Featuring some misunderstandings and some making up between Ana and Gabriel.

Ana sleeps and comes awake, a gasp aborted by the weight sitting across her chest. The sharp stab ebbs, but only to reveal that everything hurts. Even blinking, normally a mindless concept, hurts with one eye swollen shut and her face feeling like bag ready to burst, every heartbeat a marching step closer to an inevitable explosion.

Breathing comes easier now, but it’s just about the only thing that does. When she tries to move, her armor crunches like gravel, loose edges gnawing into loose edges, her once-immaculate armor whining at each request. She starts with her fingers and toes, little wiggles that console her that despite the pain, her limbs are still connected and functional. It’s something, at least.

Everything still attached and seemingly mobile, Ana pulls herself from the ground. She slips her chestpiece off, letting it clatter to the ground and her shattered comms. piece with it. It’s scraped and beaten to the point where it’s nearly unrecognizable – this small piece of generic armor, of all things, will not be what they use to identify Overwatch’s interference.

 Walking is less good, but she’ll be damned if she lets Gabriel and McCree make the transport without her. Head still pounding, she picks up her cap, shaking it clean as best as she is able and placing it back where it belongs. The blur of her swollen eye casts a dreamlike tint to the streets, shadows shifting and lengthening under they are overwhelmed by bright dancing lights.  Her rifle – empty, battered, now useless as it is – she shoulders, the familiar weight a surprising burden. Peacekeeper, by contrast, never leaves her hand despite its empty chamber, as weight as a promise.

The journey to the transport is much more direct than the first journey to McCree. Ana’s head has started to pound from the deep pressure in her skull and try as she might, no cough seems to banish the taste of blood from her mouth. Much as she might wish, she can’t blame her situation entirely on Null Sector.

_Keep your team around you if you’re using this,_ she’d said but the words come in Jesse’s voice now. _You’ll need them to haul your ass out if you misstep._

Her feet don’t quite respond to her brain, but she stays upright. The last thing she needs is for an omnic to stumble across her asleep on the ground. Her bad eye won’t focus at all, her ankle throbs and rolls beneath her, and the growing pressure in her head feels like nails stabbing into her tongue.

Ana moves. A slow, shambling pace that is still movement, a slow creaking of forward momentum that only grows slower as the sun dips behind the gates of King’s Row. Ana is shivery and lightheaded, but everytime she lets herself pause and waver, she shakes her head and everything explodes with agony and she’s gasping as the icy streetlights explode into a city of stars.

She thinks she’s almost there when her knee gives out, bruised metal hitting the ground with a growl. Peacekeeper shakes in her hand, reluctant to raise any further than her hip as she hears a scuffling sound, like shoes scraping across stone.

“I’m armed,” a voice says, a rasp curling around the edges and not quite becoming a snarl.

“I’m not,” she replies as she shakes, Peacekeeper hitting the ground in front of her. _Sorry, Jesse._ It’s not a mistake to say so, it can’t be a mistake to say so, even as only silence replies.

Ana doesn’t move, doesn’t try to raise herself on shaking legs even as a small figure bursts out of the alley. She flinches despite herself, reflexively grasping for the revolver and aborting the motion in the same breath. Just Tracer, just the Cadet, just Lena all bright sunny smiles that wilt around the edges as she catches Ana’s elbow.

“Got her!” Lena calls, and it’s with surprising strength that she braces against Ana’s weight. Each step is an agonizing shuffle, her ankle waving a white flag in her direction, but Lena helps bolster her through the last fence, pressing Peacekeeper back into her palm.

Their aircraft waits for them, the lights a dull glow in the gathering gloom. Ana tries to decide if safety is worth the long, limping walk, and then she looks down as the scraped barrel poking from her hand. If Jesse made it this far, she owes it to him to do the same, even if every instinct screams at her to shut down, to retreat, to wall away any chance of hope before it takes root because…. _I’ll be right behind you._

She meets Gabriel’s eyes – the voice hailing her had been his, she realizes now, even as he lowers his shotgun with his shaking arm. Next to him, Reinhardt relaxes his posture, clearly ready to brandish his shield if somehow Lena managed to bring a wolf into their midst.

No wolf. Just Ana, buzzing with anxious energy and hissing with each breath. She thinks she might smile, but there’s only a strange emptiness where relief should be curled up in her chest.

“Lose anything important?” he asks archly, managing to sound haughty despite the sling on his arm and the bandages peeking out from the collar of his shirt.  

“Jesse,” she manages, even when her right ankle slips from under her and Lena has to take almost all of her weight. Tracer staggers a bit, but doesn’t let her pitch to the ground. Jack’ll be pleased Winston’s project is holding up so well, she thinks.

There’s a loud exchange of voices from inside and Ana pushes forward, bumping into Gabriel’s shoulder without so much as an apology. Lena squeaks with surprise, and when she doesn’t move fast enough, Ana pulls away.

She knows she’s as concussed and belligerent as she’s ever been, but maybe Gabriel knows that as well – he offers her the arm not encased on the sling, and together, the two stubborn warriors surmount the entrance ramp together. Beside her, Lena exchanges an exasperated glance with Reinhardt, but the man says nothing, just follows them with a measured gait.

“Jesse,” Ana grunts again, and the noise Gabriel makes is a steady vibration through her side.

“He’s awake,” he says, and for a moment, Ana thinks he’ll stop there. She starts to growl at him, open her mouth to say… something. Anything, really, but then Gabriel shakes his head. “She won’t let us near.”

Ana wouldn’t let Gabriel approach Jesse in this state either – not when Gabriel has the look about him of a sandstorm, rage whipping around him in a furious wind ready to flay flesh from bones. Jesse, if he awakes, will assume Gabriel is directing that fury at him, not that Gabriel is angry with himself. They all know that, even Gabriel, which is likely why he shadows Ana and not Angela.

One foot, then another. Gabriel lowers her down against the side of the airplane, where she tilts her head back and lets her breath rattle from her in a great gust. Gabriel doesn’t try to touch her after that, but does cast a quick look over her, not all too pleased with what he sees. He paces, a snarl of dark energy around him, clotted and jagged like a scar.

There’s a flurry of words from Tracer that waterfall over one another, tumbling into an indistinguishable blur. Torbjorn answers, a swear in his voice if not in his words and it’s then that the plane thrums to life, motor sending a rumbling through Ana’s joints. The plane jolts, just a hair, and then it’s like they’re weightless all over again.

Someone grips her arm. At some point, Ana’s good eye must have drifted closed. It snaps open, clotting blood tearing at her lashes as she startled awake.

“I… we need to talk,” Gabriel says, eyes flickering to the quiet agents in the room, as though she hadn’t nearly hit him across the face with Peacekeeper. Ana nods and lets him take her weight, one arm pulling on hers until she’s upright once more. She could have been asleep five minutes or five hours – exhaustion still dogs at her feet and her bruises have started to form new bruises. Her fingers leave sharp indents on Gabriel’s hand, small toothmarks of anxiety that fade when she starts to move away.

They pass through the doorway towards the rear of the plane, ducking into a room made bright by a makeshift halo of lights that illuminate Angela leaning over Jesse’s still body. A sheet covers all but his head and neck; for a moment –

“I sedated him for the surgery,” Dr. Ziegler says quickly as she straightens, following her eyes. Ana nods, and regrets it immediately as the pressure behind her eyes grows once more, sharp pricks sending her focus fleeing the opposite direction. “Thank you, Gabriel, for bringing her.”

Gabriel helps her into a chair near the bed. Ana sinks down and he retreats. Gabriel stops, just out of arms reach but doesn’t leave, one shoulder stooping slightly as the sling gets in the way of crossing his arms.

Perhaps it’s not just for Jesse’s sake that Angela’s keeping the infirmary on lockdown.

Angela pulls on a fresh pair of gloves, and despite herself, Ana trails the path of the bloodied pair to the trashcan. It’s close to full, bandages and broken equipment and other pairs of equally stained gloves set aside with deliberate inattention. Ana’s so preoccupied with examining the room that she flinches as Angela’s fingers brush over her eye.

“Have you-” Angela begins.

“No.”

The doctor sighs, and although her eyes are focused on the gash over Ana’s eye, her mind is clearly elsewhere. “If you would prefer to wait until we are done, then you are welcome to come back.”

Gabriel scowls at that, shaking his head – less a protest, more a denial, Ana thinks.  He looks… troubled, if _troubled_ could ever be a heavy enough word to describe the shadows in his eyes. Although his eyes are focused on Ana, his mind is clearly elsewhere.

“He’s in stable condition,” Angela murmurs, even as she adjusts the caduceus beam. Ana blinks against the warm glow, wincing as her skin crawls at the doctor’s touch. “I do not know when you put the tourniquet on – an impressive job, to say the least – and although he certainly wouldn’t have made it to transport without it, his lower arm was exceptionally damaged by the decreased circulation. Furthermore, the majority of the bones in his left hand were crushed, and I’m not certain I would have been able to keep enough pins in place to stabilize it while the caduceus beam worked.”

Ana watches the scarce rise and fall of Jesse’s chest, waiting for the steady rhythm to falter. She ignores Gabriel’s hulking shadow, a seed growing in her own mind. Angela stops talking after that, as though she expects Gabriel to chime in. But there’s no reason for Gabriel to interfere with a medical diagnosis, not unless –

“He still has time remaining on his sentence.” The UN has too close an eye on them for Jesse to slip under the radar, not when he’d been brought into Blackwatch with Gabriel swearing the cowboy’ll hunt with them until Deadlock’s nothing more than a collapsed bonfire.

 Jesse’s ambidextrous, he draws and shoots with both hands, but Jack will have no use for a field agent that will never regain his full potential, not if Jesse’s hand was damaged as thoroughly as Angela says.  She’d hang before she lets Jesse spend his days in a jail cell and she’s not fool enough to think any of the senior agents would let her hang alone. For a moment she can imagine it all too easily.

Blackwatch has spilled blood before in defense of its own, after all. It won’t take much for them to go rogue completely.

Angela kneels down to examine Ana’s foot, crouching by her side. The warm aura of the staff surrounds Ana, Dr. Ziegler’s own personal sun.

“I gave the order for amputation,” Gabriel tells her, voice flat. For a moment, Ana doesn’t move, keeping her eyes on Jesse’s body.

_In. Out._ She lets her breathing take the rhythm of his, trying to convince herself that she misheard Gabriel. The concussion, perhaps.

“Reyes?” The name comes out more fiercely than intended, a sharp lance of pain from her ankle causing her to jerk away from Angela’s probing fingers. Gabriel flinches, ever so slightly, the hand not in a sling moving to cup his opposite elbow.

“Admit it,” Gabriel says, and _fucking_ Reyes, he makes the words sound like a challenge. “Your first thought was the same as mine. The UN signed off on McCree for his aim, not for-”

“Shut up,” Ana cuts across him, but Gabriel continues in the same flat tone.

“-his attitude. Doesn’t matter which hand – unless they both work as they ought, he’s out.”

“You know Jesse’s worth more to Blackwatch than just for his _aim,”_ Ana’s indignation rises in her throat, choking off her air and leaving her ice-cold and shaking. She wants to hit something, to push that rage into a tight, hard ball until it’s a bullet she can send in motion. “You’re a cold-hearted _bastard,_ Reyes, you-”

“You know the higher ups see him as property, nothing more. If he can’t serve their purpose, then they’ll wash their hands of him in a heartbeat, it doesn’t matter how long he’s fought with us. I’m keeping him useful, Ana.”

Punching him isn’t something she chooses to do; there’s a hurricane of rage swirling in her chest and just as a volcano can’t help but erupt, Ana can’t stop her fist from lashing out as her skull splits with pain. It’s a blind reaction, and uncontrollable outburst as though she has more than just bumps and bruises from the OR, as though something vital’s been broken and –

“Captain!” the shock of Angela hitting her – no matter how soft the blow, this is _Angela_ – gives the doctor enough leverage to yank Ana off of Gabriel. Gabriel doesn’t try to escape her fists or her words, staying on the floor right where she’d put him.

“He’s like a son to you,” Ana snaps, stepping back from Angela and almost overbalancing on her shaking ankle. “Fareeha’s _brother._ He’s more than something useful.”

Gabriel rises to a sit, his good arm propping him up. Already a welt’s started to appear on his check and it won’t be long before they become a matching set, eyes swollen beyond sight. “ _What was I supposed to do?_ You tell me - you’re one to judge, considering you’re hardly there for your daughter at all. She visits base when you’re gone, just sits around and _waits_ for Jack to give her the news that you won’t be coming back. If you think that qualified you to sit and-”

Her mouth open, but nothing comes out, her chest so tight every breath feels trapped in her throat, but she’s not entirely willing to move forward with Angela between them both.

“Out,” the doctor snarls and silence falls in the room, a heavy blanket muffling them both. Ana keeps her eyes on Gabriel. She doesn’t drop her stare when he meets it with his own challenging glare. “I brought you in here to discuss solutions, not to fight like new recruits. _Get out_.”

The door closes behind them, Angela’s lips pressed in a tight line that do little to hide the teeth behind her words.

“Cockpit,” Ana snaps, well aware that Oxton and Reinhardt are staring curious at them both. Gabriel trails behind her, an angry inferno snapping at her heels.  “Out,” she tells Torbjorn when they march into the front, and there’s enough ice in her voice that he only makes one snapping remark in passing as he evacuates.

She doesn’t look at Reyes, not for the few first moments while she reacquaints herself with the plane. The autopilot engages readily, the clear night air meaning she has nothing to worry about while she turns and looks at Gabriel.

_“Gabe,”_ she sighs, his name a quiet whisper. The pressure in the back of her head’s subsided to a dull roar, a slow gnawing on her bones that recedes but doesn’t disappear entirely.

“I shouldn’t have brought Fareeha into this,” he doesn’t meet her eyes, just watches the thin wisps of clouds retreat from them.

Ana grunts with agreement. “You’re an asshole,” she sags against the console, too tired to allow the tension to do anything but bleed out of her. “So am I.”

“As long as we’re clear on where we stand,” Gabriel’s heart clearly isn’t in the words, his shoulders trembling with his own form of exhaustion.  He gives a sigh of his own, still meeting her eyes. “This is going to destroy Jesse.”

Ana shakes her head before she truly thinks about it. “Jesse’s lived this long by adapting. He’s been through worse trials.”

If the strange calm welling in Ana makes her the eye of the storm – well, then Gabriel is the winds not far from the center, an angry surge of energy ready to indiscriminately wreck havoc on passerby. His face darkens further, eyes flashing as his fingers tighten on the back of the unused chair.

He’s still shaking, but Ana thinks it’s more than pain, more than exhaustion. Jesse’s more than just an agent to the both of them, there’s certainly no arguing that – which is perhaps why Gabriel came up swinging. Handling bad news is something Gabriel generally excels at, especially with Blackwatch being the way it is – but this is clearly not one of the hundreds of contingencies Gabriel’s anticipated, a punch in his blind spot when he wasn’t even considering the need to roll clear.

He stays silent, moments ticking past, until the friction between them dissipates completely, leaving just a sad exhaustion in its wake. “You truly think he’ll recover from this?”

Ana hums, watching the city starlight beneath them as Europe bleeds by. “Genji did.”

“Jesse isn’t Shimada.”

“He doesn’t need to be,” Ana shoots back. “Shimada has his brother, even if it’s only so he can kill him later. Jesse has more than just that.”

_“Get me out of here or leave me. ‘m gunna be useless anyway,”_ Jesse had started to say, pain and fear as the OR-14 had advanced on them both. But they hadn’t left him, not then and certainly not now.

The base comes into view in the distance, a hulking goliath awaiting their entrance. Gabriel automatically moves to assist her, their hands light on the controls even with the subject heavy in the air around them.

_Steady on, cowboy._ She’d told Jesse once before. _Keep your team around you if you’re using this,_ y _ou’ll need them to haul your ass out if you misstep._

“Watch the kick,” she reminds Gabriel as they approach their landing. “McCree will be fine – we just need to trust him.”

The plane touches down, the expected jolt as it makes contact with the surface never comes. Gabriel moves away from the controls, nodding at the two figures waiting for their approach – one almost hidden in the shadow of the other.

“Trust McCree,” he muses, slowly, thoughtfully. He pauses, a statue despite the way the smaller figure’s broken into a run. Gabriel nods decisively. “You ask a lot of me, Amari.”

“Hush,” she scolds him, even as the door slides open as her touch. “Like you haven’t asked more than enough of me over the years.”

Gabriel adjusts his beanie, pulling the brim lower over his eyes. “You’re a miserable old women and you’ll die that way,” he says, but there’s no heart and no heat in the words. “ _Fine,_ I’ll talk to Morrison.”

Ana smiles, even if it’s just a fleeting thing. Gabriel’s already set his jaw, ready to go back into the cage-fight once more. Jack won’t go down easy, but it’s obvious the outcome is predetermined from the start.

As Ana exits the aircraft, something hits her in the side with the force of a bullet. Ribs aching, ankle shuddering, eye half-swollen shut – despite that, Ana can’t help but smile as she uses the better of her two arms to pull Fareeha close, nodding to Jack as he approaches at a more measured pace.

They’ll have a long road ahead of them, she thinks, but they’ll get there in the end.

_“Ready, McCree?” she asks, watching how his face grows still with concentration. She can see herself in the line of his body, in the measured way that he ignores the AI’s approach. It’s not his first time using Deadeye, not the first time she’s watched the desert sand take him in its grasp and struggle to let go. She can almost hear the tolling of the New Mexico church bells, feel the heat of the harsh sun beat down on her back._

_“Draw,” he whispers, the word a humble prayer on his lips, and-_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHAT? (you say)
> 
> Red_Tigress and I have a sequel fic in the works, so expect to see more added onto this series. This first part was always meant to be about finding Jesse and bringing him home - the second story, with its own arcs and with a focus on our lovely Fareeha, gets to be about what happens once he's there. Additionally, Alex and I have begun work on an AU story with a focus on Reaper and Ana just before Overwatch's recall. (here's some preview art for the comic she's making to go along with it [here!](http://redtigress.tumblr.com/post/160071632493/what-a-difference-a-pallet-makes-even-for)

**Author's Note:**

> Here's some of the accompanying art Red_Tigress provided:  
> 


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